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Last week was our fourth installment of CakeTV Live, which we broadcast bi-monthly, live, from Center Staging in Burbank, CA. In this latest episode we showed over 450 live viewers the new features of SONAR X2. In case you missed it, the webinar is now available for viewing on CakeTV (or right from this web page, below).

During the webcast we did our best to cover all of X2’s new features like Smart Grid, ProChannel FX Chains, and R-MIX SONAR. However, there were a few new features that we didn’t have time to demo that we think are worth mentioning.

Copying and pasting automation is now possible across all types of tracks and buses, including Instrument Tracks. For example, automation in SONAR X2 can be copied from a track to a bus, a bus to a track, a track to a track, or a bus to a bus. And automation across multiple tracks can be copied and pasted from one section of the song to another, something that is immensely useful when arranging a project.

SONAR X2 also brings new automation modes to the party; Overwrite, Touch, and Latch. Overwrite writes automation from the position of the automated control as soon as playback begins. Touch only writes automation while the control is being moved. And Latch only begins writing automation when the control is first moved.

Along with the new modes, Automation Write can now be enabled and disabled on the fly without stopping playback. This is true for entire tracks, individual plugins, or synths.

The metronome can also be turned on and off on the fly in SONAR X2. While routing the metronome to a bus is still handy for volume control and headphone sends, now all that needs to be done to turn the metronome on or off during playback or recording is to reach for the blue metronome buttons in the Control Bar.

The Piano Roll View has also received a good amount of love in X2. Now, each individual controller lane has its own Edit Filter to choose which controller value is displayed on said lane. Additionally, the Smart Tool now free-hand draws via simple left click + drag, rather than the older method which required a double key-command + drag. This should greatly enhance the workflow of those who write and edit a lot of controller data in the PRV.

Scrolling just got a lot easier in SONAR X2. Along with Timeline Zoom comes Timeline Scroll, which in a nutshell allows you to scroll the project left or right by left-clicking and dragging horizontally in the timeline. This is incredibly handy when combined with Timeline Zoom for fast and easy project navigation.

Track and Console View icons now alpha blend, which means their background is transparent. Which means there are no more blocky, ugly, square, gray backgrounds around and behind the icons.